


Harry Potter Next Gen

by MsMay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, I am aware of this and trust me it was intentional, There's sort of Scorpius/Albus is you squint, This is a very different take on Scorpius
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMay/pseuds/MsMay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scorpius, Albus, and Rose become the next trio, and struggle to define themselves against the legacy of their parents and the expectations of their peers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry Potter Next Gen

**Author's Note:**

> This is the frame story from which I will randomly illuminate other scenes in their Hogwarts life. It will probably have an Scorpius/Albus bend to it.

There were many surprises that are not surprises the year Rose Weasley and Albus Potter start Hogwarts. Albus was first. He walked to the stage alone, the gaze of his brother at his back. He was sorted into Slytherin, and James looked stricken as he watched his baby brother walk away. James looked even worse, when Rose followed suit, but when Albus and Rose looked at each other they knew it was not so much of a surprise, like the twist at the end of the book you’ve already guessed, like knowing the hero will live, but not quite knowing how. Albus had been afraid of Slytherin, but on the train Rose has asked him, what do you want to be? He replied the best Augur. She asked, who will you let stop you? He said no one. Now in the great hall, they took each other’s hands for a moment, brother and sister, and knew. Son of the chosen one, he’d be the greatest Augur to walk the wizarding world. Daughter of the bright witch of her age, she’d be the first female minister of magic. Both knew that nursed quietly beneath their bravery was a heart of ambition, and, as their family could not comprehend _how_ or _why,_ Albus and Rose knew this was not really so surprising.

When Scorpius Malfoy took the stage there was no one there to share his look, and understand that he was unsurprised. But he wrote a letter the first chance he got and there was someone who was not surprised. Scorpius was not so much his father’s son, as he was his mother’s. Astoria Malfoy made a chose the day after the battle at Hogwarts. Her choice was that whatever her parents and, later, step-parents wanted her to do she would to the opposite. Since doing what they had asked of her had resulted in _this_ she would make a different choice. She didn’t know exactly what she was doing, but figuring things out had been a strong suit of hers. She was almost in Ravenclaw you know (when she was younger she would tell this to everyone who would listen, but as she grew older she began to understand the wisdom of a Slytherin’s careful tongue.) and she knew how to observe and learn from her mistakes.

Something of this resolution took seed inside of Scorpius from the moment he was born, and with Astoria’s careful nurturing it bore fantastic fruit. The Malfoy Manor sat on approximately three hundred acres of land, and Scorpius knew all of them. He knew every inch down to every inchworm by digging his fingers into the mud. He knew the grass by the stains it left on his trouser knees and his elbows and under his nails.

Draco was never really sure what to do with this child. He did his best but frankly he wouldn’t have really known what to do with any child, and Scorpius in particular was a conundrum to him. He tried his best to instill in his son family pride, a refined sense of manners and a drive for success. These things stuck fairly well when Scorpius was in the house. When Lucius and Narcissa were around, Scorpius cleaned up, sat neatly, and spoke with reserved grace. But then the second the dinner table was cleared, and his grand parents depart Scorpius was gone, slipped out of sight and onto some other adventure. Draco would ask Astoria what she was doing, and she would smile, and tell him not to worry. She had a woman’s intuition. Really, what she had was the ability to watch.

She watched Scorpius develop a clever tongue and sly wit. She watched him brave the elements, and run head first towards whatever magical beasts slipped into the wooded area around their property. She watched him devour the library when it rained too hard to go outside, or it was too dark to be out in woods or fields. She watched him love the world, the air, his father and even his grandparents.

For a while she wasn’t sure which way he would go, with a Slytherin’s tongue, a Griffindor’s heart, a Ravenclaw’s mind and a Hufflepuff’s hands, it was anyone’s guess where he’d be sorted. But then Astoria began to watch more closely and she saw that for all he was clever, Scorpius was only ever wry in jest, and even when his grandparents were particularly critical, he would never return the slight. As stupidly brave as his love of wild beasts was, it was love and fascination that fueled him. When she asked him why Scorpius went to see his favorite new best every day, he would say “they’re my friends.” And while it was true he loved to read and was eternally curious, he’d rather have his hands on something real, learning by experience.

Yet despite this evidence Astoria kept her thoughts open, right up until she saw him talk to Muggles for the first time. The two of then had been on a trip to visit the magical district of Wiltshire when all of a sudden Astoria looked down and he was gone. She searched high and low for nearly two hours before she found him in an alley, playing a strange game with some Muggle boys. Now Astoria was trying to be open minded, but she was by no means ready to have her son _play_ with Muggle boys. With a quick word she swept up on him, and disguised her hesitation about the Muggles as concern for her missing son. She dragged Scorpius away and resolved not to let this happen next time.

Only, it did.

The second time she found him was easier than the first, and this fact meant she couldn’t help but watch. There was something about Scorpius that Astoria had always observed but never really understood before. Now as she watched him play with these Muggles and their kicking game, she understood. Like Draco, Scorpius had a sort of attraction about him that made people want to look to him and listen. There was a regality to him that commanded respect, and demanded people pay attention to him. However, where her husband’s attraction had been couched in a hatred of others and undermined by a wavering thread of cowardice, Scorpius was still too young to know such things. She let him play. When she back an hour later he was leading the boys with open laughter and a genuine pleasure.

Every time they went to the city after that Scorpius would see the Muggle boys and play their Muggle “soccer” for a bit. When he got old enough to go out on his own, Scorpius came home with good bruises and scrapes from a ball he very nearly saved, and bad bruises and scrapes, badges of honor won in defense of the friends he wouldn’t abandon, no matter what. She was careful to ensure that he never let his magic slip, and that he didn’t become _too_ close to the Muggle world. But left to his own devices, Scorpius’ clever tongue slowly put itself to serve his friends, and his brave heart made him their leader, and his curious mind fed off of their stories, and his loyal hands defended and supported them. By the time his letter came, Astoria knew what her son valued most.

He still glowed on his own, delving deep into the wide world of his backyard, but something in him had changed. Scorpius was no longer like Janus, one side a wild boy, the other a little prince. He had melded the two, into something gallant and adventurous, but tinged with precise manners and a mischievous mind. Of course there were certain Malfoy traits he couldn’t quite escape, like his pride for one, and his tendency towards arrogance for another. There was also the matter of money. Astoria was well aware that she had spoiled him rotten, and so Scorpio had absolutely no concept of what was too much, only what was too little. When he didn’t get his way he was sullen and prone to sulking, and when he was angry he would stomp about and yell for all he was worth, but he was still a child.

Scorpius went to Hogwarts two years ahead in Herbology, and snuck into Care for Magical Creatures for fun, but when it came to Defense Against the Dark Arts he wasn’t good for anything. Potions was a well sight worse; if he could stay focused enough to finish his pot nearly always blew up in his face and he fell off his broom as often as he stayed on it. The professors were baffled. A Malfoy, who was no good with Dark Arts or Potions? Couldn’t be. On the other hand Transfiguration and Charms, came to him like breathing.

Scorpius did his own laundry under the guise of fixing what he ruined in the first place. The poor house elves just couldn’t believe it. A Malfoy doing his own laundry? Really he was trying to hide the evidence of his late night escapades into the forest, but no one had to know that. Filch was almost always on his case for sneaking outside after curfew, lurking around the edge of the forbidden forest, and generally being too curious for his own good. But Scorpius always had a bowl of milk for Mrs. Hennison, a daughter of the now deceased Mrs. Norris, so Filch was always letting him off with warnings.

Hagrid was at first very put off by this arrogant little Malfoy, but when Buckbeak Jr. didn’t so much as flinch in his presence, he began to reevaluate. Be it spiders, Giants, or Runespoor, Scorpius loved them, and so slowly Hagrid came to love the arrogant little Malfoy as well (though he did never stop referring to him at the arrogant little Malfoy). Scorpius asked the moving paintings to answer his riddles, and was so very much in his own world that at the end of his first year he was still a stranger to much of his own house.

Despite this Hufflepuff loved him as they did every new member, and even Professor Long Bottom took a liking to him. His prefects were run ragged trying to keep him inside long enough to study, and it seemed that no matter what they did he wouldn’t behave. Then dear Victoire Weasley, sixth year Hufflepuff Prefect, had an idea. She approached Scorpius, batted her eyelashes, leaned forward, and told him he was adorable. Scorpius looked back at her with a blank gaze. He replied politely that her thought she was lovely as well, but he had things to do before he attended to his potions homework, you understand surely?

Victoire blinked. What things? Well, Scorpius showed her the little pots he had convinced Professor Longbottom to lend him, separated at the back of the greenhouse, with their sprouts, a menagerie of glowing and pulsing and twisting color. After that Victoria was quiet, and watched Scorpius until she figured out what it was that motivated him. Then Victoire sat down right next to him, gave him the steady stern look his mother sometimes did, and told him that if he didn’t get his act together, he would embarrass his family. He was hardly seen without a quill or book afterwards, and Victoire declared herself his guardian until further notice.

Scorpius rode the last train home with his robes and excellent marks and minor potions burns, and when he touched down on the platform his mother welcomed him with open arms. His father was as awkward and confused about him as ever, but he smiled and commended his work. His mother recognized the handiwork of a stern and loving hand. Over the summer Astoria worked with Scorpius to produce a lovely potted bush of roses, that changed colors depending on it’s owner’s mood, and grew bigger the more it’s owner loved it. Scorpius took it to school with him the next year, along with a thank-you note from his mother, and a little note of his own.

Victoire nearly cried, but instead she dabbed her eyes, and insisted they get back to work. With the help of his favorite Prefect, Scorpius began to serious learn about his fellow Hufflepuffs and study diligently. His Defense Against the Dark Arts marks improved markedly. Potions class was still fairly hopeless. There was not much to be done about that. In his second year he also improved markedly on the boom, and was able to make the quidditch team as a Seeker.

He didn’t play as a regular, but he practiced with the team’s current Seeker and by the end of the year was fit to be her replacement. When his father asked him if he would like new brooms for the team, Scorpius didn’t understand the implication. He told Draco that he’d rather use Draco’s old broom. After all he had once caught the snitch against the legendary Harry Potter, so it had to be lucky. Draco insisted that if it were any kind of luck, it wouldn’t have been the good kind, but didn’t press the issue further. This year when Scorpius came home, his father was a little less awkward and a little less confused. His mother was just as proud, and sent Victoire a little note for her graduation that said: anything you need, just call.

It wasn’t until Scorpius was in his third year that he discovered Rose and Albus. The only class that Slytherin had with Hufflepuff his first and second year was Herbology, but he took Herbology with the third (and then later fourth) years. However, starting in his third year a curious little Hufflepuff named Hugo Weasley joined the fray, and after ascertaining that he was indeed related to Victoire, Scorpius took him under his wing. He heard about Rose and Scorpius from Hugo, but never thought much of Hugo’s stories. So when the Hippogriff tried to disembowel Albus during their first Care for Magical creatures class, Scorpius was reasonably surprised to learn that there were others who existed that were as bright and well bred as he. He of course didn’t voice this surprise until after he had finished saving Albus from a feathery death.

Scorpius was thereafter delighted. For all of her ambition Rose was a riot, and had the kind of easy bleeding humor that Scorpius heard the older Hufflepuffs attribute to the founders of the joke shop in Hogsmede. Besides anyone who could make a joke about their cousin’s near death experience had to be fun, if not the most morally upstanding character. Rose adored Scorpius’ clever and earnest ways from the get go, and was especially charmed by his tendency to get full of himself. This, she found, made great material for jokes and the fact that Scorpius never took any of her teasing too terribly hard, was a bonus (as was his self proclaimed mentorship of her brother Hugo). Albus was another pickle, a little nervous, and perhaps a lot morose. He didn’t take too quickly to Scorpius.

Well that was alright as far as Scorpius was concerned. They all had Runes together too, so they had plenty of time. Runes was something that Scorpius was _very_ hit or miss at. Some he could know and understand and even _use_ runes almost instantly. Others were . . . Well they weren’t so great. Albus on the other hand made steady measured progress through the class. Rose was fairly excellent, but Scorpius believed that was largely due in part to the fact that her mother was one of the top experts on runes in the wizarding world. This all suited Scorpius just fine, as the top marks in the class always belonged to either Albus or Rose. Every time Scorpius wasn’t getting something he would ask Rose, and Rose would very subtly pass him off to Albus, who hadn’t realized he was being volunteered for tutoring until it was too late.

That was where they became friends honestly, tucked in the back of the library, or some other quiet hole. Sometimes Albus would sneak up to the top of Astronomy tower and they would have their lessons under the noon sky or under a blanket of stars. Once, Scorpius told Albus that the stars suited him, cold, bright, distant, as real as a dream, but permanent, sure. He had all of Rose’s sureness, her tenacity borne like hard stone along each of her ridges and valleys, but there was quality of unknown about him, of possibility. All of his intensity poked through in bright white moments of clarity, scattered about his usual façade of cool control. It made him beautiful in a way. Albus had looked at him strangely then, before smiling. Damn right, he said. Then he said, tell me what you think about Rose. Scorpius did, he told Albus about how she was like the whole of the earth. Every facet of her was distinct and the same. She was sometimes sharp, sometimes cold, sometimes warm, but always there was a place for you there. She wouldn’t make an effort to give it to you, but if you looked for it there was a place. She knew she was bound by the limitations of humanity, and yet somehow that only made her seem more full. Great roiling power bubbled and churned beneath her surface and at her core was an iron will to change the world. Albus nodded, and they didn’t pick up their notes after that, just sat, watching the stars.

The next day at breakfast Rose strode up to the Hufflepuff table and sat down next to him. She didn’t say a word, and it was the only time she would do so. At first Scorpius didn’t understand. Then he caught Albus’ look across the room at Slytherin’s table, and he knew. Albus had told Rose and this was how Rose told Scorpius that as much as he belonged at her side, she belonged at his as well. Albus smiled, soft and earnest, and then turned back to his notes at the Slytherin table.

After that, the three of them were inseparable. People took to calling them the Misplaced. The funny thing was, no one would ever quite agree on where they should have all been placed. Everyone knew they should have all been placed together, but where? Gryffindor? Albus was hardly gallant. Ravenclaw? Sure they were all inquisitive, but Rose and Scorpius weren’t exactly philosophers. They preferred action. Hufflepuff then, but no, Rose could never be so selfless. Slytherin? Well certainly not Scorpius, the boy wouldn’t step on a worm if it were the only way to get where he was going. This quandary became a game of sorts among the professors. When asked her opinion Headmistress McGonagall said it would have been a mistake to place them all in Gryffindor. Lord knew the rest of the Potter-Weasley brood was more than enough trouble as it was.

Although she did mention that she wouldn’t have been opposed to the arrangement if they had all agreed to join quidditch.

Albus was excellent on a broom but he shied away from quidditch for reasons he didn’t really like talking about. Rose was a born Beater, and Scorpius had more than his fair share of close calls thanks to her. They developed a rivalry of sorts, particularly because despite Hufflepuff’s lack of aggressive playing, Scorpius almost always got the Snitch, and thus almost always won. The morning before they had matches against each other Scorpius would sneak over to the Slytherin table and they’d argue over whom Albus should support in the upcoming match. Albus was usually ambivalent about this argument. As for the rest of Slytherin, well the opinions were mixed. The younger Slytherins found Scorpius a bother, but they couldn’t do much. After all the Slytherin prefects had had Herbology with Scorpius for years, and it was largely thanks to him that they made any kind of sense out of it. They certainly weren’t going to be the ones to tell him off, especially when he would suggest that maybe they ought to study on their own if they didn’t want him sitting at their table. This never stopped the prefects from throwing in their two cents though. After the arguing got to a certain pitch the new Hufflepuff prefect would come over and drag him back to Hufflepuff.

When he went home for the year Draco was thrilled he had made Slytherin friends. Astoria was thrilled he had made friends with Hermione’s children. She had always admired Hermione. Both parents were a little nervous about Scorpius getting friendly with Harry’s son, but when Scorpius insisted that Albus was actually quite plain and a little boring they were both soothed.

During their fourth year a funny thing happened. Strangely enough, Slytherin had the kind of open door policy that would have caused a bit of trouble, had there been a large number of students who were willing to hang out in a dungeon. Thankfully, only a cluster of kids were kind and stupid enough to hang around inside the Slytherin common room. This cluster consisted most notably of a girl from Gryffindor who seemed to visit with the express intent of getting into brief but intense fights with a girl from Slytherin. Then she would go, and neither would look all that affected by these encounters. Then were a few Ravenclaw kids who came to Slytherin to study with partners from their classes. Of them, he preferred the dreamy twins Lorcan and Lysander, both 4th years like he.

Anyway, visiting Slytherin became such a habit of Scorpio’s that the prefects would welcome him home, and on one memorable occasion he passed out studying Runes homework with Albus, and then actually woke up in Albus’ bed. Apparently there were two extra beds in the boys’ dorms, and so Ablus opted to sleep in one of those since it was easier to drag the sleeping Scorpio to his own bed. The rest of the Slytherin thought this was hilarious, and insisted they had seen it coming since last year. Rose made jokes for weeks about his sleeping over, all of which made Albus shift uncomfortably in his seat and ask her to knock it off.

Albus kept being kind of strange that way. When they hung around with Rose he didn’t seem all that nervous, but the second they were alone he would start to get fidgety and was careful not to touch Scorpius. Scorpius understood that he was embarrassed about being teased, but still, he didn’t particularly like that Albus was uncomfortable with him. The first time he snapped at someone for teasing Albus, the other Slytherins backed off immediately. Albus only looked a little hurt, and didn’t say a word to him all day. Then, as if their intimacy might go unnoticed if it went in little pieces, the distance between them centimeter by centimeter until Severus could put his full palm down between their bodies on the now rare occasions they sat next to each other. The day that Albus chose to work on a project in Runes with a boy named Allen Finnigan, Scorpius reached a breaking point. He skipped out on his afternoon classes, and instead wandered around Hogwarts.

He couldn’t think up riddles for the paintings, couldn’t get the timing right on the stupid moving stairs, and he couldn’t even come up with a good excuse when caught him Filch. Filch let him go out of pity, and Scorpius felt worse than ever. Then he found a door. Now Scorpius had never been terribly invested in the interior of Hogwarts, but he knew well enough by now that this door was new. Very slowly he opened it, and crept inside. The room was a little dark, and empty save a mirror. Scorpius sat down in front of the mirror, and looked.

It showed him Albus, doing that thing he would do, where he would smile but wrinkle his nose too. Rose dashed in, threw her arms around Albus’ shoulder, said something to make Albus laugh and then winked at Scorpius. After that she dashed off. Other characters made rounds through the mirror, most often it was Rose, but Victoire and Hugo popped in, as did his parents. There was a moment where Draco shook Albus’ hand, and Albus looked to Scorpius out of the corner of his eye, with that same soft tenderness he had in their third year. Something inside of Scorpius broke, but something else was set right.

He left the room quickly, and made a b-line for the headmaster’s quarters. Headmistress McGonagall greeted him first with a “why aren’t you in class?” and then with a “why on earth were you running?” and then finally, “what’s wrong?” Scorpius was quick about it, describing the room, though not what he saw. Headmistress McGonagall was quiet, and answered him in full. It was the room of requirements; it gives you what you need. That was the mirror of Erased; it shows you what you desire.

All this led Scorpius to the conclusion that 1) He missed Albus, 2) Albus was pulling away, and it was because of something Scorpius said or did 3) Scorpius did not know what this something was 4)But the room had shown him that he could fix this if he tried and last but not least 5) He had a lot to do. Headmistress McGonagall warned him not to skip class because of this nonsense again. Scorpius made no promises.

The rest of the year, Scorpius stopped making the effort to be around Albus, and instead dedicated himself to the task of understanding. He started with the other kids who would hang out in Slytherin, and learned that the Gryffindor girl was Molly Weasley. She introduced him to the other Finnigan boy, Westly, and one of the prefects, Olivia Wood. Lorcan and Lysander introduced him to Amy Chang. Together they decided that Albus was embarrassed by Scorpius because he was a Hufflepuff and the other Slytherin didn’t think he should be associating with a Hufflepuff. He would really have to wait for Albus to accept him. Since there wasn’t much Scorpius could do to change his nature or Albus’ nature, he instead set about changing the entire house related culture. His council thought this was ridiculous, but they were still definitely all in.

Strange outbreaks of climbing plants in the Slytherin dungeon, huge birds made nests in the Ravenclaw towers, there was a fire in the Gryffindor common room (in Westly’s defense he had just meant to make a stink potion but it blew up in his face, rather literally), and suddenly Hufflepuff absolutely needed to build blanket fort cities in the Great Hall. The self-styled inter-house alliance organized wizarding plays and _almost_ convinced Headmistress McGonagall that a musical was necessary for their education. They started prank wars, the most heinous of which involved turning the door to the Slytherin dungeon into a Portkey that took anyone who touched it to the Grand-Weasley’s house where they were immediately politely cajoled into wearing a sweater, offered food, and made to watch How It’s Made with Arthur Weasley’s running commentary.

Very near the end of the year, when Scorpius _still_ hadn’t heard from Albus, Rose sat down across from him and insisted that if he and Albus didn’t make up she would lock them in a closet until they figured this out. Scorpius insisted in turn that he was working on it. After a brief spat, he had explained his plan. Rose thought it was all absurd, but Scorpius insisted that if Albus was embarrassed by a Hufflepuff, Scorpius would show the whole school just how much a good a Hufflepuff could do. He would make Albus proud to be his friend. Rose considered this carefully, and then informed him that Albus’ birthday was coming up at the end of term. He should finish his plans by then.

Rose then began to aid them as well, though ever the politician, she was careful not to let Albus know, and even more careful not to let Scorpius know how Albus was feeling. She insisted that if he wanted to know he had to ask Albus himself.

Three weeks until the end of the school year, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, Scorpius showed up in the Slytherin common room for the first time in months. Everyone stared at him for a few minutes, but he strode straight over to Albus and asked him to follow him. For a little while Albus resisted, but eventually curiosity won out. They walked down strangely empty hallways, until they came to a door that Albus hadn’t remembered seeing before. Scorpius threw open the door to a chorus of happy birthday, and ushered Albus in without further ado. After all was said and done, Scorpius, Rose and Albus sat together in the emptied room, giggling and talking about everything and nothing. Albus saved Scorpius’ present for last, a little box wrapped in green. Inside it held a little golden snitch, because no matter how far apart they got, Scorpius would always try to find his way back to Albus.

Albus smiled and scrunched his nose up and told Scorpius he thought this was horribly cheesy. Still his clutched the snitch to his chest, as if it were something incredibly precious. They all ducked out of the room in the middle of the night sneaking around corners until they were able to slide into Slytherin with Filch on their tale. The older Slytherin welcomed Scorpius back with snark and sly remarks, and the younger ones rolled their eyes and bid goodbye to their Hufflepuff-free space.

But it was alright, all in all. They would still have fights. Rose would feel unappreciated, and Albus would resent Scorpius’ newfound inter-house friendships, particularly in regards to his companionships with James. Scoprius would become hurt when Rose and Albus but their schoolwork and their plans before him, but there is a thread running between the three of them, something that can be broken. Even then they felt a shiver of it, the knowledge that they were connected now, for better or worse.

And so three souls slipped into their dreams each imagining their future, each knowing that the others would always be a part of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to comment, and if you want to talk head-cannons or have questions, feel free to hit me up on my writing tumblr: honeycoolers


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